Deer stalking and the use of modern technology

[teyhan1]

With the on-set of modern technology are we being fair to quarry species?

In my opinion God does not exist. In my eyes we have evolved in to the species of animals we are today through a set of genetic freaks born out of nature. Those natural experiments that nature chooses to embark on. Some make it, many do not.
So we arrive at todays modern animals. All have come through many variations. Small modifications having taken place through the millennia. The constant struggle to outwit the species that preys on you as a food source. This applies equally to plants as it does to animals.

It is with those thoughts that we arrive at todays conundrum.
Are humans that choose to use the latest really playing "the game"?

In the past, we, as a predatory species would have evolved a new tactic to be able to better hunt our prey. This advance would have been tiny, but might have just given us enough of an advantage. This may have been, eyes on stalks for looking over hills without revealing ourselves, camoflage for better concealment, longer legs for faster running. Then as we are a better hunter we naturally breed more and the trait is re-enforced. The prey in return will then evolve as only the fittest survive. Once again the ones that run fastest, have better reaction times, or maybe are a bit more scittish and run at the slightest incident.
However with the beginning of the industrial revolution and man-kinds real awakening to the products and science that he can produce, has come a cessation of the age old struggle of advancement and counter-advancement when it comes to the killing of animals.

Now some will say that if I am arguing against technology then why don't I use a bow and arrow. Well I can't. If I legally could, I would.
So some will say well why not use a rifle with open sights. Well, I have. But I have decided that to be as humane as I can be then a telescopic sight is as far as I need to go.
Many people are now using TI. Lots of people agree with it as a tool for control and where pest control is required then I am all for it. But for the recreational stalker, I cannot see that it has any place.

Going back to my original point and putting it into context.
We have developed guns, to which we have attached sights. Deer have responded by changing their habits. They emerge later in the evening. We in return have adjusted our stalking sights. We have larger optics that gather light more efficiently. The deer where heavily hunted will go completely nocturnal or sometimes will then start to emerge in the middle of the day as they learn your habits.

With problem that I have with TI is that we are making such a massive leap in terms of evolving that would normally take hundreds of years to work its way through the gene pool. Technology we can be rolled out and on the ground with cost being the only thing that holds anything back.

 

[JTO]

And I bet you prefer sex standing up in a hammock.

 

[teyhan1]

And I bet you prefer sex standing up in a hammock.

I'll take sex anywhere I can get it. Which being married means anytime anywhere.

 

[oager]

It's the 'sporting' v 'culling' conundrum. If it's a job, technology presses onward and leaves the Luddites behind. I'm happy to be in the latter camp, but know that as tech marches on, it will drift down.

 

[tozzybum]

War has sped up firearms development so much,man has just adapted it to "kill"his quarry .Thats why the yanks love all their toys that would make us walk away.Tradition for me ,dont want electronic calls and thermal sights .Wheres the "stalking"in scanning your land???

 

[Taff]

I must meet the wrong yanks, as hunting laws there are much stricter than in the UK, night vision and thermal are far more common in the UK , electronic calls are used for vermin, but not game shooting apart from ducks, but mouth calls are used mainly.

 

[308rws]

I fear that the demand for modern "dual use" technology developed from military equipment is unstoppable, unless the fear of it falling into the wrong hands drives stricter regulation.

So in my own opinion on the subject, Thermal Imagery for accurate deer census and thus better deer management is a good thing - for deer.
Thermal Imagery for culling is what military snipers and attack helicopter pilots do - not stalkers.

As ever, the moral choice rests with whoever is pulling the trigger.

 

[artschool]

In my opinion God does not exist. In my eyes we have evolved in to the species of animals we are today through a set of genetic freaks born out of nature. Those natural experiments that nature chooses to embark on. Some make it, many do not.
So we arrive at todays modern animals. All have come through many variations. Small modifications having taken place through the millennia. The constant struggle to outwit the species that preys on you as a food source. This applies equally to plants as it does to animals.

well why don't the deer hurry up an develop cloaking technology like the klingons?

 

[Heym SR20]

Let's be honest our basic technology was pretty well sorted in the first decade of the last century. Rifles and cartridges haven't materially changed. Optics have improved in the last 20 odd years, but I am shooting a 40 year old zeiss scope and a current generation has more zoom and red dots and costs a lot more but you can still put a bullet into a 4" kill zone out 200 yards with ease. High light gathering scopes - zeiss 8x56 etc have been around since ww2.

Laser range finding and IR or image intensifying type sights are now affordable, but have been around a long time. Lamping has improved - no longer do you need to lug a car battery around.

what has happened though is manufacturers and vendors have created the need and desire for more kit, and mankind has evolved from a hunter gatherer into a toy gatherer. That V12 scope will be better than the v8 and will make you a better hunter I am sure. But it will relieve you of a hard earned £4000 and keep the engineers in funds to develop the v16, which you will then need tops end £10k to make you an even better hunter!!!

 

[Bigbloke]

As the price of TI comes down, the uses that it can be put to will become more diverse and mundane. Once that happens and a spotting device of some sort is in the low £ hundreds, the use of them will become the norm and we will all come to an accommodation with our moral reservations.

The only thing I can see that will practically stop this happening is if the technology is restricted by law.

That's the way it's gone with every other technical advance, I cant see why this one would be any different.

 

[Jagare]

I wonder when it will be OK for people to sit at home and shoot deer from the comfort of their own soffa. State of the art trail camera, TI , infared ect, all connected to a remote weapon via the computer. As people have so little time what with work, family, kids and all the other shat that gets in the way of stalking and learning a bit of field craft. Plus i bet somebody on here will say its just a natural progresion.

 

[FrenchieBoy]

You can call me old fashioned if you like but I'm happy with my "basic" rifle fitted with a set of bog standard (Cheap) 8 x 56 scopes and a little fieldcraft skill. I manage to get a few deer while stalking so I'm happy as I am. As for all these Thermal Imagers, electronic callers and heaven knows how many other "high tec gadgets" that are available you can keep them!
I like to pit my wits against my quarry, and if I am not successful on a stalk then I will sit down and think about what I am doing wrong and try to get it right next time so as to improve on my skills rather than relying on "gadgets and gizmos" to do the job for me!
Mind you, I wouldn't mind something that would recover the carcasses for me so I don't have to keep spending heaven knows how long sweating, puffing and grunting whenever I do manage to grass a deer!

 

[Erik Hamburger]

I would only have sympathy for your reasoning if you walk to your stalking ground and leave your car at home, as well as your mobile phone, watch, compass, rifle, bino's, scope, and technical clothing.
My point is you can't fight technological progress, if the tools are out there to do a job more efficiently than use them.

 

[FGYT]

I wonder when it will be OK for people to sit at home and shoot deer from the comfort of their own soffa. State of the art trail camera, TI , infared ect, all connected to a remote weapon via the computer. As people have so little time what with work, family, kids and all the other shat that gets in the way of stalking and learning a bit of field craft. Plus i bet somebody on here will say its just a natural progresion.

already illegal in many USA States

and i believe remote fired guns are illegal in UK

 

[Jagare]

I would only have sympathy for your reasoning if you walk to your stalking ground and leave your car at home, as well as your mobile phone, watch, compass, rifle, bino's, scope, and technical clothing.
My point is you can't fight technological progress, if the tools are out there to do a job more efficiently than use them.

Well i do leave my car at home and walk to my hunting ground. Don't need a compass or watch. Mobile phone i take for my own safety and it is just a mobile phone. Technical clothing is for Sunday hunters good old moleskin do's for me. Realised years ago that most of the modern stalking aids are foisted on us by the marketing industry and we fall for their crap.
Very little of the stuff advertised in any hunting magazine makes for a better hunter. Just a lazy one.

 

[rodp]

I suppose if you use anything other than natural materials found on the ground then you've already given in to progression !

 

[Jagare]

You can call me old fashioned if you like but I'm happy with my "basic" rifle fitted with a set of bog standard (Cheap) 8 x 56 scopes and a little fieldcraft skill. I manage to get a few deer while stalking so I'm happy as I am. As for all these Thermal Imagers, electronic callers and heaven knows how many other "high tec gadgets" that are available you can keep them!
I like to pit my wits against my quarry, and if I am not successful on a stalk then I will sit down and think about what I am doing wrong and try to get it right next time so as to improve on my skills rather than relying on "gadgets and gizmos" to do the job for me!
Mind you, I wouldn't mind something that would recover the carcasses for me so I don't have to keep spending heaven knows how long sweating, puffing and grunting whenever I do manage to grass a deer!

Ah, but your just like me. When are we going to learn and come into the modern world like all the others with more money than sense .

 

[bogtrotter]

Anything that helps improve accuracy and hence the likelihood of lessening suffering can't be bad, but I do wonder how much of this gear is really needed especially for stalking.

It does seem strange that the majority of the stuff that comes on the market is bought by the recreational stalker
while the pro just seems to buy what is needed nothing more.

In my case my rifle is 35 years old ,and still performs perfectly well, yet I read on here of those needing to purchase a new rifle or re barrel after a few thousand rounds because its shot out, won't be changing mine until itneeds it and that is unlikely to happen now at my stage in life.

The scope that sits on it was bought as bankrupt stock so don't know the real value,a good quality scope and while its not as good as a Zeiss its not that far behind, and on what a stalker earns I always found it hard to justify that extra cost,

Same goes for binos again mine are not best German, but highish end Japanese not the best but adequate for the job in hand.

My spotting scope is a 100 years old and does what it says on the tin, it will go to my grandson when I fall of my perch, and hopefully he will pass it on when his time is up, would like to think it will still be on the hill spotting stags a 100 years from now.

Range finder never had one and don't feel they are really necessary, distance is not that hard to estimate at normally stalking distances say out to 200 yards further than that and you are not really stalking are you?
Zero your rifle so that you don't need to hold over for your normal stalking distance, in my case an inch high at a hundred yards means POA FROM point blank range out to 200 yards even at 300 yards which is way beyond the distance I would normally shoot laying the horizontal line in line with the back bone of the beast (red) will result in a boiler room hit, so if you can judge distance out to 200 yards which you should be able to do, it pretty much makes Range finders redundant.

While Thermal imagers and Night vision scopes have there uses for foxing, not so for stalking and are in fact illegal
though a Thermal imager may be used for census work.

I see knives being sold on here at upward of £300 pounds, I think the most I ever spent on a knife was just under a £100 and these days I, don't spend that, now use Mora's at around a tenner do exactly the same job.


OK gone off on a tangent a bit, do I think that modern technology gives today's stalker an unfair advantage no not really apart from TI and NV which are already illegal,what I do find disturbing is threads such as this and others that gives the novice the idea that you need to spend a fortune on kit to go stalking,which is clearly not the case, I see
people spending more on kit just to get started than I have spent on the whole of my career.

Now if someone comes up with something to retrieve the carcasses as FrenchieBoy suggested, I might just be persuaded about modern technology even more so if it could also do the larder work.

 

[McKenzie]

Well i do leave my car at home and walk to my hunting ground. Don't need a compass or watch. Mobile phone i take for my own safety and it is just a mobile phone. Technical clothing is for Sunday hunters good old moleskin do's for me. Realised years ago that most of the modern stalking aids are foisted on us by the marketing industry and we fall for their crap.
Very little of the stuff advertised in any hunting magazine makes for a better hunter. Just a lazy one.

+1

 

[Jagare]

Now if someone comes up with something to retrieve the carcasses as FrenchieBoy suggested, I might just be persuaded about modern technology even more so if it could also do the larder work.

I did buy a Honda quad and part of its duties is to take bags of maize out to fill the boar feeder and drag back the boar. It's main use is carrying my chainsaw and brush cutter round in the forest. Plus topping the grass with the flail mower and the forest rides. Best bit of kit a old git can buy.